ISSN: 2474-3690 Çakıcı et al. J Hypertens Manag 2019, 5:043 DOI: 10.23937/2474-3690/1510043 Volume 5 | Issue 2 Journal of Open Access Hypertension and Management REsEaRch aRTiclE White Coat Hypertension in Children and Adolescents: Innocent or Not? Evrim Kargın Çakıcı*, Eda Didem Kurt Şükür, Fatma Yazılıtaş, Gökçe Gür, Tülin Güngör, Evra Çelikkaya, Deniz Karakaya and Mehmet Bülbül Department of Pediatric Nephrology and Rheumatology, Dr. Sami Ulus Maternity and Child Health and Check for Diseases Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey updates *Corresponding author: Evrim Kargin Cakici, MD, Department of Pediatric Nephrology and Rheumatology, Dr. Sami Ulus Maternity and Child Health and Diseases Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey, GSM: 00905052653472 Abstract Introduction Background: The clinical significance of white coat hyper- After the advent of ambulatory blood pressure tension is still uncertain. We aimed to evaluate children with monitoring (ABPM) the management of blood pres- white coat hypertension regarding their clinical, laboratory sure (BP) has dramatically changed [1,2]. Ambulatory characteristics, evidence of target organ damage and com- pare them to normotensive and hypertensive children. blood pressure monitoring provides a more accurate measurement of BP than auscultatory or automated Methods: Fourty patients diagnosed with white coat hy- office readings and it is shown to be superior in ad- pertension, 40 patients with primary hypertension and 40 normotensive children of similar age, gender and body ministration or adjustion of antihypertensive treat- mass index were included in the study. Ambulatory blood ment and prediction of cardiovascular morbidity. An- pressure monitoring and echocardiographic examination other superiority of ABPM is the detection of white were performed to all children. Clinical and laboratory coat hypertension (WCH) and avoiding unnecessary characteristics were noted. further testing in these patients. As highlighted by Results: All ambulatory blood pressure monitoring pa- the recent American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical rameters, except night-time diastolic blood pressures and loads, were significantly higher in patients with white coat Practice Guideline for Screening and Management of hypertension compared to normotensive ones. Left ven- Elevated Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents, tricular hypertrophy was 35% in the primary, 15% in the the majority of the pediatric population has primary white coat hypertension group, and no left ventricular hy- HT. However, emphasis was placed on evaluation for pertrophy was detected in normotensive patients. No sig- WCH by ABPM before diagnosing HT [2]. nificant difference was found between 3 groups in terms of proteinuria or retinopathy. White coat HT is defined as elevated office BP mea- Conclusions: Children diagnosed with white coat hyper- surements with normal BPs outside of the office set- tension had ambulatory blood pressure monitoring mea- ting. Ambulatory BP monitoring is often utilized for es- surements and left ventricular mass index values smaller tablishing the diagnosis. Various studies have reported than patients with primary hypertension but more than nor- motensive children. Echocardiographic changes might sug- a wide range in WCH prevalence ranging from 12.9% gest that white coat hypertension can be associated with to 88% of children depending on the criteria used [3- target-organ damage. 5]. Clinical significance of WCH in children is a matter Keywords of debate. Since several earlier studies did not show significant target organ damage associated with WCH Blood pressure, Hypertension, White coat hypertension, and it has been believed that WCH is a rather benign Left ventricular hypertrophy condition in children which does not require therapeu- Citation: Çakıcı EK, Şükür EDK, Yazılıtaş F, Gür G, Güngör T, et al. (2019) White Coat Hypertension in Children and Adolescents: Innocent or Not?. J Hypertens Manag 5:043. doi.org/10.23937/2474- 3690/1510043 Accepted: September 28, 2019: Published: September 30, 2019 Copyright: © 2019 Çakıcı EK, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Çakıcı et al. J Hypertens Manag 2019, 5:043 • Page 1 of 6 • DOI: 10.23937/2474-3690/1510043 ISSN: 2474-3690 tic intervention or monitoring [5,6]. Even in adults, the not limited during ABPM. Daytime, nighttime and clinical significance remained uncertain and most stud- 24-h ABPM parameters were recorded for all patients. ies indicated that the risk of cardiovascular disease in Monitoring was considered reliable if more than 70% WCH was comparable to that of normotension [7]. Re- of the measurements were valid. Records with fewer cently it has been shown that WCH leads to cardiovas- than 70% readings were considered unsuccessful and cular changes and is slightly effective on mortality and repeated. Decrement of mean systolic or diastolic BP morbidity in contrast to previous studies [8-12]. How- over 10% between daytime and nighttime measure- ever, this effect was not as apparent as with primary ments was defined as dipping. Blood pressure load hypertension [11]. was defined as the percentage of measurements that were above the 95th percentile for age, gender and The aim of this study was to compare the patients height. Hypertension was defined as elevated mean diagnosed with WCH to their age, gender and BMI 24-h BP above the 95th percentile adjusted for height matched counterparts with primary HT and normoten- and an elevated systolic and/or diastolic BP load sion, regarding clinical and laboratory characteristics, above 25% [2,13]. Children with BP over the 95th per- ABPM measurements and target organ damage. centile on casual measurements and normal values Materials and Methods on ABPM were considered to have WCH. Study population Echocardiography A retrospective study was performed at Dr. Sami Echocardiographic study was performed with a Ulus Maternity Child Health and Diseases Training and commercially available standard ultrasound scanner Research Hospital. Patients aged 5-19 years and with a (Vivid 7; General Electric Medical Systems, Horten, height of ≥ 120 cm, referred to the Division of Pediatric Norway) with 3.0- and 7.5- MHz transducers. Echo- Nephrology for evaluation of elevated BP, underwent cardiographic evaluation and analysis of left ventric- ABPM between January 2013 and December 2018 ular measurements were performed by the same were included. Only patients taller than 120 cm were cardiologist. The LV mass was calculated according included due to absence of ABPM reference values to the Devereux formula and indexed to height2.7 as for children under this height. In the clinic, BP mea- left ventricular mass index (LVMI) [14]. The sex and surements were repeated 3 times with 10-min inter- age-specific LVMI partition values defined by Khoury, vals in a sitting position. A mercury sphygmomanom- et al. were used to define left ventricular hypertrophy eter with an appropriately sized cuff was used by the (LVH) [15]. same physician. For casual BP measurements HT was diagnosed when the mean of 3 BP measurements was Statistical analysis greater than the 95th percentile for age, sex, and height The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) in children < 13-years-old or > 130/80 mmHg in chil- version 20.0 for Windows was used for statistical dren ≥ 13 year of age according to the latest guidelines evaluations. The results were presented as mean val- of American Academy of Pediatrics [2]. Patients with ue ± one standard deviation. A p value < 0.05 was evidence of secondary HT and those already on anti- considered statistically significant. The differences hypertensive medication were excluded. Secondary between three independent groups were compared HT was diagnosed based on medical history, physical by using one-way ANOVA with Tukey test for normal examination, laboratory and radiological examinations distributions or Kruskal–Wallis H-test with Bonferroni as appropriate. Fourty patients with diagnosis of WCH, adjusted Mann-Whitney U-test for non-normal distri- 40 with primary HT and 40 normotensive healthy con- butions. trols of similar age, gender and body mass index were included in the study. Echocardiographic examination Results and ABPM were performed to all children. Fourty patients were diagnosed with WCH (mean age, 14.4 2.8 years) among children referred for ABPM. All patients signed the informed voluntary con- These patients were compared with 40 primary HT sents approved by the institutional ethics committee (mean age, 13.4 ± 2.5 years) and 40 normotensive pa- of Keçiören Training and Research Hospital, in accor- tients (mean age, 14.3 ± 1.76) with similar age, sex, and dance with the Declaration of Helsinki (2012-KAEK- BMI. There was no significant difference between the 15/1909). primary HT and WCH patients regarding family history Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring of HT (p = 0.201). Uric acid levels were significantly high- er in primary HT group. Demographic data and laborato- A non-invasive oscillometric monitor (Mobil-O- ry findings of the patients, are given in Table 1. graph®NG, version 20, Stolberg, Germany) was used for ABPM. The monitor was set up to measure BP ev- The overall results of ambulatory blood pressure ery 20 min between 08:00 and 20:00, and every 30 monitoring are presented in Table 2. The 24-h mean min between 20:00 and 08:00. Daily activities were SBP, day-time SBP, night-time SBP, 24-h mean DBP, day- Çakıcı et al. J Hypertens Manag 2019, 5:043 • Page 2 of 6 • DOI: 10.23937/2474-3690/1510043 ISSN: 2474-3690 Table 1: Clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients. Primary HT (n = 40) WCH (n = 40) Control (n = 40) p Age at diagnosis, year (s) 13.4 ± 2.57 14.4 ± 2.80 14.3 ± 1.76 0.137 Male sex, no. (%) 22 (55%) 26 (65%) 17 (56.7%) 0.636 BMI (kg/m2) 24.1 ± 4.08 23.3 ± 3.0 22.8 ± 2.81 0.317 BMI-SDS 0.88 ± 1.13 0.83 ± 0.77 0.77 ± 1.01 0.249 BMI ≥ 95th percentile (%) 40 38 36 0.917 Family history of hypertension, no.